


Cure

by BloodyJerk



Series: Gems Hunted [3]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, Gen, Hunted AU, Recovery, Trauma, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 10:16:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14054751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BloodyJerk/pseuds/BloodyJerk
Summary: "I like to see my past as a lesson, not a life sentence."She was a peridot, like herself. A young one, almost red brownish instead of green and for a split second she seemed so apathetic to Peridot’s appearance that she feared the gem was already dead.[Set in my Hunted Universe]





	Cure

**Author's Note:**

> I remember telling a commenter, who asked me to turn this into a big story, that I would think about it.  
> And honestly, the longer I think about it, the more Ideas I get.
> 
> Warning for Mentions of Child Abuse and Stuff.   
> Peridot talks to a someone who just got rescued out of a basement after being abused for years.   
> Y'all can imagine it's not gonna be pretty, so if that could be upsetting to you, I advise you not to read this.

She wasn’t supposed to be awake.

When Peridot got inside to exchange her destroyed chip for a new one to ensure she wouldn’t get abducted and smuggled over the border she wasn’t prepared to find her awake.

She was a peridot, like herself. A young one, almost red brownish instead of green and for a split second she seemed so apathetic to Peridot’s appearance that she feared the gem was already dead.

Her eyes were empty and the hand that wasn’t cuffed to the bed was lying limb over the covers, hidden in a cast to give it another chance to heal.

The humans had broken her hand and fingers and didn’t allow it to heal. Over the years it had never gotten the chance to really get better and Lapis had paid the surgeon to cut the bones and align them in the right way. They had to amputate two of her fingers in the process, but at least she would get a chance to use her hand again.

How ironic, Peridot thought for a second, breaking it to make it heal, before she remembered the guards back in the facility, who had whispered among themselves, to break the gems and put them together in the way the government wanted them to be.

She realized that this was definitely how the worst facilities, boot camps, military and some governments worked, but also how therapy was working: Breaking the walls to get to the problem, breaking all together in the process to rearrange the pieces to something better.

She shuddered while thinking of the stuff those kids would have to go through, but she had no chance to think further, as the peridot in front of her finally reacted.

She screamed.

Honestly, expect for jumping slightly Peridot found herself rather sympathetic than annoyed or scared.

The last thing the kid probably remembered was someone storming the house, kicking down the door of the basement and dragging her and her … well companions out, armed and in heavy armor, just to be sedated and now to wake up in an unfamiliar bed, shackled to it.

Yeah, no, Peridot would have screamed too, but she understood why this was necessary:

If she tried to flee, if she tried to kill herself … they couldn’t risk that, so instead of getting nervous, Peridot felt herself calming down, as if she wasn’t really part of this situation at all. The kid needed help and they would provide it. She would provide it.

The kid was confused, scared and highly unstable, so they had to ensure her safety before anything else.

Putting down the chip and the clipboard with the gems documents Peridot put her hands up, as silent as possible, moving slow and steady, showing the kid she wasn’t meaning any harm. She wasn’t trained for this, but it didn’t mean she couldn’t try to talk to her instead of sedating her again before implanting the new chip.

She stopped a few meters before the bed, putting her hands down, looking at the gem with a neutral face.

“I’m not gonna hurt you”, she promised, pretty sure the gem couldn’t even hear it over her screaming, but saying it anyway, “But I need to change the chip in your neck so you can see your friends again.”

Immediately the peridot shut up and stared at her in horror.

“My friends?”, she whispered, her voice hoarse and raspy. She was probably around 15 or 16, just growing into a young adult. And she kinda looked like a kid, at the first glance, by passing maybe, but not when you saw her face. Saw her eyes. There was a kid deep inside this shell, this hollow wall she had built up to get through the torture and Peridot knew at least what that felt like.

“The three other gems that came with you. The crystal quartz one seemed very, very worried about you, I had to promise her to tell her how you’re doing after I exchange the chip.”

“Cheryl”, she whispered, her eyes watering and I nodded. It wasn’t so untypical for gems to call each other nicknames, but as far as Peridot was concerned this was a human name. Probably given by their torturer.

Peridot would think about that implication later.

“It’s a strange name for a gem”, she said, sitting down in a chair, not getting any closer, “And what do they call you? What does Cheryl call you?”

“She didn’t tell you?”

Peridot had lied, she only knew the crystal quartz cared about the peridot because she almost bitten a big hunk of flesh out of Jasper’s arm to get to her when they carried her into the operating room. But she would get through this, she just had to keep calm and try to make the gem believe her until she got to change the chip.

So she shook her head: “No, she didn’t. I hadn’t much of a chance to talk to her, though. She told me to keep an eye on you before they tended to her wounds.”

“Is she alright?” The gem tried to sit more upright, moaning in pain when she felt the leather of her cuffs forcing her back, stretching her arm and shoulder in an unnatural way if she tried to move too much or get out of bed.

“Please stay down” The sudden movement had surprised Peridot and she had jumped out of her seat, only stopping halfway on the way to the bed. The gem had crawled back to the headboard, as fast as she possible could without harming her arms.

“She is alright”, Peridot started, slowly putting her hands up again and getting a few steps back, “And I’m planing to keep that promise: I’m not gonna hurt you. I’m pretty sure Cheryl would break me like a twig if something happened to you.”

That made the gem finally smile, even just for a second and Peridot felt relieve. She would have to lie a lot, she saw it coming already, just as the others had to.

She had seen Lapis with the emerald, who had come with the crystal quartz and the peridot, who only begged and cried to be taken back to the basement until Lapis promised to get them back to the humans because the emerald was so afraid the humans would be set free and find them again.

She had to promise her they would not only tell them how much they asked for the humans but also how good they talked about them, just to make sure the emerald wouldn’t lose her nerves.

Of course they would never see their kidnapper again. They wouldn’t be asked as witnesses in the court room, but by the judge and a few psychologists to ensure they wouldn’t have to deal with their torturers again. It was hard to understand, but not only was Stockholm Syndrome one of the many ways of the brain to cope with this kind of trauma, but a lot of the victims were also afraid their abductors would somehow come free, believed they were so powerful they could find them again, and punish them for the misbehavior, for not being loyal.

Jasper had dealt with the overly aggressive lapis lazuli, which wouldn’t talk at all, only asking how long the group and the police thought they would get away with this. How they could try and tell them they would be safe, when obviously they couldn’t, when this whole ordeal was just treading water, tilting at windmills when humanity had already decided gems were nothing more but pets at best and easy money at worst.

So Peridot tried the same, talking to the peridot, which was called Sienna. Of course their kidnappers had called her after her color, if they would have been creative they probably would have done something better with their lives instead of kidnapping gemlings and doing stars knows what to them.

“Done” Peridot said after a short while, putting the destroyed chip pieces into a plastic bag and instantly backing off afterwards. Two guards, one a gem and one a human police officer, were standing in the room with them, watching the process and trying to give the gem a feeling of safety.

Peridot knew that feeling wouldn’t come for a long time, maybe never, but she couldn’t think about that now. She had to make Sienna believe everything would turn out alright.

“What will this chip do?” Sienna asked, stroking over her neck again and again, where the chip laid implanted. She couldn’t scratch it out and Peridot would have to keep a close eye on the healing process in case Sienna would still try.

“It’s an old law to find gems easier” Peridot began, figuring she would find sooner or later eventually so there was no harm being honest for a minute here, “But in this country it’s only used to find lost gems. The government and the police are only allowed to use it to track you if there is the chance someone could have hurt you or taken you away.”

It happened so often and so frequently they kept gems chipped to ensure their safety that way. It was morbid and Orwell probably would have had a lot to say about it, but Orwell wasn’t here and after everything they had gone through, after everything Sienna had gone through, this was a necessary safety net. An anchor to a safer society, who treated them like they belonged in some way or another.

“Alice said you use the chip to find me and bring me into facilities to cut of my limps” Sienna countered, “To sell parts of me until I was nothing but a bloody lump.”

She had started crying and the officer immediately left the room to get Pearl or someone else with some sedatives, but Peridot stayed calm, just as the other gem in the room. An Amethyst, who looked at the two peridot’s with an emphatic little smile on her face. The pain in her face was obvious, even if she tried to hid it.

“Not here” Peridot promised, pointing to herself and the amethyst, “Or do we look like bloody lumps to you? Nobody is going to take you anywhere and cut anything of to sell it, I promise.”

Sienna looked down at her hand and Peridot prepared herself to lie again, until Pearl walked in, engaging in the conversation until Sienna let her come closer.

Pearl injected the sedatives before Sienna could even realize what exactly was happening, and Peridot watched her fearful eyes getting taken over by the fog, remembering how it felt to think this was the end.

How calm it felt.

“We need to ensure they won’t get addicted” Pearl told the officer and the amethyst and maybe even Peridot, “If they get too much of this stuff they won’t learn how to calm down themselves. Let’s try and ensure they don’t have to live on this stuff, okay?”

All three of them nodded in agreement and finally Peridot was able to leave, sighing loudly as soon as she was outside the room. She felt like she was breathing for the first time in years again and felt the emotions well up in her, the memories and the fears.

“Are you alright?” Pearl asked her, concern thick in her voice, “Do you want me to get Lapis or some downers for you?”

She knew Peridot wasn’t trained for this and far too unstable to deal with survivors out of any therapeutic context, but Peridot shook her head, smiling at her.

“It’s okay” She promised and it wasn’t even a lie. Somehow she managed to keep it at bay and finally Pearl left to see the other three gems while Peridot stayed behind.

There she stood, in a small hospital in Bumfuck, nowhere, trying to implant new chips into a group of gemlings to ensure they would stay safe. To implant some chips because they would have to spent the rest of their lives on the run otherwise, having a long way of recovery before them.

Honestly, it was strange to know this was only the beginning for them, they probably were afraid it was the end and pretty sure just another stepping stone to their torture, but Peridot knew better. One day they would realize they were free, after someone broke them apart and helped them set themselves together once again.

They wouldn’t see each other until the trial was over and the humans were in jail, to never get out again, and they would probably try again and again to change something about it in some way or another. Lie and try to flee and hurt themselves like scared animals.

Peridot knew the procedure, sometimes she found herself in the catch-22 also, knowing the gemlings would have to deal with this all their lives.

But they would also deal with their freedom.

And with getting their own lives together, sooner or later they would deal with paying rent, managing to get out every morning to visit school, maybe college and than to get to their jobs every day.

And eventually, Peridot realized, they will deal with their past in a complete different manner, because they will value their future, the lives they build for themselves so much more. And they won’t allow their fears to endanger that, will treat their scars with care so they won’t rip open.

The way there will be hard, recovery will be hell, Peridot knew, but standing in this hallway, this white hallway with their generic landscape pictures out of calendars, framed in cheap wood on the wall, with their wooden chairs cushioned with fake leather and magazines about health on every other table.

It reminded her that life went on. And eventually the kids would too. Bumfuck, nowhere was close to the border, saw many gems who were abused, cut apart and almost dead, sometimes exactly what Sienna feared to be turned into, and still time went on here. And even if Lapis Lazuli and Jasper, Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl and all the other volunteers saw stuff like that every day, sometimes every other day for weeks and months, they managed to get home, cook some food, watch television, read, sleep, go grocery shopping without fearing for their lives and their minds on the mundane stuff that was every day life.

“You look quite happy there” Jasper said with suspicion, Lapis following close behind her, frowning at her big friend for being so loud.

“Pearl told us” Lapis explained, before Peridot could even open her mouth, “She wasn’t supposed to be awake already. We wouldn’t have asked you to do this, if we...”

“It’s alright” Peridot smiled at the two of them, putting her hands in her pockets after putting down the bag with the destroyed chip and clipboard, leaving it with the guards, “I talked to her. She seems like a good kid.”

Jasper and Lapis looked at each other with raised brows. They were prepared for a lot of different reactions, but not that one.

“Are you sure you are alright?” Jasper asked again, all three of them walking down the hallway to get to the kiosk, to get some coffee.

It had been a long night for all of them and it was far from over. The sun was coming up but it sure as hell didn’t brought more than 15 minutes break with it.

“Yeah, I’m alright” Peridot promised, “I’m gonna see my shrink in a few days anyway and if I feel any kind of unwanted emotions I will go directly to the psychology department here. You guys alright with that?”

Lapis and Jasper nodded, a little surprised but after getting a coffee and sitting down in the corner to calm down and enjoy the quiet for a little while, Lapis surprised look turned into a smile. After all it was the reason why her own recovery was going so well, too.

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” She asked her lover, who sat close to her, holding hands and finding comfort in each other.

“Being able to help.”

Peridot nodded, Jasper looking back and forth between the two of them but deciding to keep silent. She was getting used to the two of them having some kind of secret couple speak she couldn’t understand and she was too tired to try and figure it out in the moment.

Meanwhile Peridot nodded, looking out the window, at the last stars in the sky while it stared to turn violet and blue, “It does.”

They stayed for a while, drinking their coffee and thinking of mundane things like what route they would take home, what to buy for dinner and if they should go to the movies sometime.

Life went on for them, even after everything that had happened.

And it probably would, no matter how many gems they would find and see.

Luckily, Peridot thought after they all got out of their chairs to get back to work, chances were life would go on for most of them, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, I only realized what a call back to Be Merry, My Friend, Be Merry the whole 'Peridot is kept in a basement' set up is when I was writing the opening note.  
> Recycling my own Ideas here in secret, ha.
> 
> Anway, 
> 
> Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed it, please consider leaving kudos and a comment!


End file.
